"The Land of Shadow" - Jacob's Thoughts

I wonder how often, during the World Wars, Tolkien felt like Frodo and Sam in Mordor: eternally surrounded and besieged by the forces of darkness, hatred, and hopelessness, occasionally punctuated by brief moments of daylight and rumors of victories abroad...only to then be immediately beset once more by further shadows, doubt, and darkness.  I'll be honest, I've been understanding that feeling a lot more than I'd like to lately.

Other things I'm tried of feeling: that I just read yet another bridge-gap chapter, one that doesn't give me much to talk about.  I mean, I get what it's trying to do: it's giving us a firm sense of place, immersing us into the ugliness and horror of Mordor, making the reader feel the weight so fully that when victory finally comes, it will taste that much more sweeter, pack that much more of a punch.

What struck me the most, however, is the fact that, well, this is the only real chapter we spend in Mordor, isn't it!  Like, doesn't it feel as though we've already spent chapters here?  Haven't Sam and Frodo been trudging their way here all along?  But no, they've only been making their way along the peripheries this whole time, they've only just now crossed the borders of this polity.  I guess what I'm saying is that it feels almost superfluous to have spent this extended chapter in Mordor; we've otherwise gotten such a strong sense of place from other peoples' descriptions and our encounters with its inhabitants, that to actually be there is a just tad anticlimactic, since we are encountering exactly what we expected.

Moreover, Sam's idle curiosity as to how the heck Sauron feeds and keeps all his soldiers and slaves in this arid wasteland, far from hand-waving away the logistical dilemma, serves only to foreground it.  How on Middle-Earth does Sauron keep his all his vast hosts supplied??  I almost wonder if the real reason Sauron is so intent on conquering the world isn't just because he's power-hungry, but because he just plain needs more arable land. ("We need breathing room!" "Earth, Hitler, 1938.") 

"The Ride of the Rohirrim" - Eric's Thoughts

Jacob and Ben attacked this chapter  so "savagely" that I am left with no choice except to defend it. I submit that this is the greatest chapter in the whole series.

Jacob and Ben first point out that the chapter is pointless, that the chapter involves random "Wild Men" and could have been streamlined with other chapters or cut entirely. Well, Jacob and Ben are wrong. How else would the Riders of Rohirrim have gotten around orc patrols guarding the road? If the Riders had to fight their way through the orcs, the forces of Sauron would have been better prepared. So this chapter is critical both in terms of plot and pacing.

Then Jacob and Ben complain that the Wild Men don't "fit" with anything. Not so. Jacob and Ben fail to mention that the Wild Men are very much like the Wights we saw earlier in Fellowship of the Ring. Specious at first glance, yes, but after you analyze it further, you realize how fundamental they are to the plot.

Jacob and Ben then complain that the Wild Men are lazy stereotypes. Even if that is true, isn't anything a type of stereotype? And isn't calling something a stereotype . . . stereotypical? What Jacob and Ben don't realize is that their critique of the Wild Men is nothing more than a stereotypical criticism about stereotypes.

Finally, Jacob and Ben forget that this chapter provided critical character development for Merry and Dernhelm. By reading this chapter, the reader gains rock-solid insight into who Dernhelm is. The reader learns slowly that Dernhelm doesn't talk much, but his presence affords Merry protection so that Merry can talk, even though Merry was not allowed to come. The reader also learns that Merry is good at snooping--the chapter reveals who these Wild Men are by Merry eavesdropping into their plotting. So that point was critical as well.


All in all, a masterful chapter.

"The Tower of Cirith Ungol" - Jacob's Thoughts

I am intent on finishing the series this year.  Sally forth friends.

I was explaining to my students the other day about how if they wanted good grades in my class, then their papers need to be detailed, specific, and use as much imagery as possible; one student then chirped up with, "So you want us to write like a fantasy novel?  Like Lord of the Rings?"  I smiled as I mentioned that I was currently re-reading the series myself.  "Oh man, they're fantastic!" he enthused, to which I immediately responded, "Yes, but not flawless."  For indeed, as we've catalogued throughout this blog, Tolkien's inconsistent-characterization, knotty-plotting, and slow-pacing have often been liabilities.  "Nevertheless," I told him, "We are able to forgive a lot in Tolkien, precisely because he is so detailed--we can see Middle-Earth in our minds when we read it."  That became my teaching moment, of how I likewise am willing to forgive a lot in freshmen writing, just so long as it is specific, imagistic, and clear (otherwise, my grading is ruthless).

This anecdote serves as a round-about way to say that this chapter, in many ways, is emblematic of the series as a whole: it goes on a little long, there's a rather needless poem shoehorned in, I'm not entirely sure what the Tower of Cirith Ungol even looks like or where everything is in relation to each other--nevertheless, I sure as heck know how it feels to be there: the foreboding, the hopelessness, the darkness both literal and metaphysical. I'm willing to forgive a lot in Tolkien's writing--including the little Laurel & Hardy routine in how Sam takes out that tripping Orc--because I can still picture what the place is like even after putting the book down.

One of the most spine-tingling details of Tolkien's portrait of the Tower is when Sam realizes that this place is intended to keep people in more than to keep them out.  It was originally built by the men of Westernesse to keep an eye on Mordor, but even after Sauron commandeered it for himself, he still found it useful for preventing his innumerable slaves from escaping.  Perhaps Tolkien was influenced by the then-current fall of the Iron Curtain, or the rise of the Berlin Wall, all of which were intended less to keep out the West than to keep people in; in any case, there is a horror in that detail, a feeling of entrapment, a sense of all of that's at stake.

But of course the most foreboding detail of all--after all of the Orc slaughters and vulture-faced stone-guardians and Nazguls surveilling overhead and shadows so complete you lose all sense of time--is also the most understated: the sudden reluctance with which Sam returns the Ring to Frodo, and the vehemence with which Frodo snatches it back, refuses to share its burden, and calls Sam a thief.  Yes, Frodo immediately apologizes and Sam takes it in stride, but the message is alarmingly clear, in case anyone had forgotten it: even in the Land of Shadows, Frodo and Sam may still turn out to be their own worst enemies.

But then, such is the case with everyone in Mordor.  For Tolkien also helpfully informs us that Sauron hasn't spotted them yet because the shadows he had created to disguise himself are now getting in his own way.  Sauron is finding that he is his own worst enemy, too--and that levels the playing field somewhat.

"The Last Debate" - Ben's Thoughts

This is another placeholder chapter, and has the awkward structure of being divided into two parts - first Legolas and Gimli's entrance into the city and their story told to Merry and Pippin of what they've been doing since "Grey Company" at the beginning of the book; and second, the titular "debate," which turns more into Gandalf lecturing than anyone actually debating, about how best to commit the forces of Gondor and Rohan going forward.

The debate is not particular interesting, in my opinion. Gandalf is in effect informing Imrahil and Eomer what the reader (and Aragorn) already knows: essentially that the struggle is hopeless unless Frodo destroys the Ring. His plan is to distract Sauron by pretending that Aragorn is the new "Ringlord" and hoping that in his arrogance, Sauron will not watch his own land, but will focus entirely on the advancing host of Gondor. Imrahil laughs at the paltry numbers they can muster, and Gandalf replies that it's no laughing matter -- they are stalling to protect their lands and people.

Jacob is absolutely right that these concluding chapters mirror themes from "Fellowship" -- I caught an echo of Gandalf's counsel to Frodo from "The Shadow of the Past" in his words to the captains here. In "Shadow," Frodo laments that he has to be the one to bear the burden of the Ring, and live in such dark times. Gandalf replies, "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Here, to the captains, he tells them to not be worried about the future, and instead focus on the present: "[I]t is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule." Gandalf here echoes the words of Christ: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 6:34). Our responsibility is to what we can accomplish here in the present. Of course that involves reflections on the consequences of our actions, but fear of what may come generally results in paralysis in the now. Similarly, when Frodo gripes that he'd rather live in some more comfortable, past age, Gandalf reminds him that too much nostalgia about the past leads to a sense of hopelessness in the present. Instead, Frodo needed to latch on to that "terrible chance" that lead the good guys to the tenuous, but hopeful position they find themselves in during Book V.

In other news, Gimli and Legolas exchange some banter and tell a story. I've already expressed what I believe to be the very poor plotting of relegating this story to a few off-screen descriptions, just for the sake of a surprise twist when Aragorn disembarks from the Umbar fleet in "Battle of the Pelennor Fields," especially considering that in exchange we were subjected to the dreck of "Muster of Rohan" and "Ride of the Rohirrim."

I will note one interesting exchange, however: Gimli and Legolas both  note the desolation of the city, both in terms of regression of mechanical and technological skill, and in the arts and beautiful aspects of the people and the city itself.

GIMLI: "It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise."

LEGOLAS: "Yet seldom do they fail of their seed, and that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli."

GIMLI: "And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess."

LEGOLAS: "To that the Elves know not the answer."

How depressing. But it certainly speaks to the human condition, and to our day -- like cockroaches, the human race will almost certainly endure, because of our innate intelligence (not necessarily wisdom) and adaptability. But will it be worth it? Or will the legacy of humankind simply be a litany of "might-have-beens?"

To that, the Elves, Tolkien, and I (a great trifecta, to be sure) know not the answer.

"The Siege of Gondor" - Eric's Thoughts

So much happened in this chapter (I read it over a couple of interspersed days) that I had to review the Cliff Notes before writing this blog post to make sure I covered everything important.

The heart of this chapter is Denethor's descent into madness.  Although the reason for his hopelessness is explained further in later chapters (i.e. Denethor has his own Palantir), the descent is understandable even without the Palantir reveal. Ben and I used to play a tower defense game in college where waves and waves of monsters would try to get by strategically placed towers that would automatically shoot. In the higher difficulty settings, the monsters would overwhelm the towers despite our best efforts and we would lose. That's pretty much what's happening here.

Notwithstanding my earlier critique of Sauron's forces being objectively underwhelming (only 30,000 strong), this chapter does an excellent job of truly making the odds of Gondor surviving seem insurmountable. To begin his assault, Sauron tosses the heads of those who were killed to weaken human resolve. Sauron uses fear as a primary weapon in his quest to subdue the world--both literally and figuratively. What does it matter that Sauron only has three-dozen thousand troops if Gondor does not even have the morale to resist?

Denethor's response to this oncoming wave of monsters demonstrates the power of fear combined with pride. Rather than turtle, as he should have done, he sends out his son in a suicide mission, implying that he expects his son to win, as Boromir "obviously" would have done. You can tell Faramir suspects his father's order will kill him, but he dutifully nonetheless obeys the command. The poisoned dart upon the return of course sets the stage for Denethor trying to burn his own son alive.

Woven into the different scenes is the Ring, of course. Denethor implies that he is aware that Faramir let the Ring go, and that Boromir would have thought to bring this gift back to him for Gondor's defense. There is a tense stand-off between Gandalf and Denethor, where Denethor asserts that he only would have used the Ring if absolutely necessary. During this confrontation, the fact that Denethor cannot even acknowledge his own fallibility of course tells the reader that he was woefully unprepared to come in contact with the Ring -- and that Faramir was right to let Frodo go. There is, of course, some logic to Denethor's position: better to use the Ring and perhaps fall than face numberless hordes and have the world fall under the Dark Lord's dominion. The reader judges Denethor only with the benefit of hindsight: if Frodo's mission had failed, perhaps Dark Lord Denethor (only a mortal) would have been a better result than Dark Lord Sauron.